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┏━━━━━━━━━━┓ chapter one: fear ┗━━━━━━━━━━┛
THE GROUP HAD DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO MOVE ON TO FORT BENNING. Shane had just finished complimenting Andrea's father's smarts when Dale stopped the RV.
"Maybe we should just go back." Glenn suggested as he looked from the map to the road.
Mal stood up, moving between Dale and Glenn, "what's wrong? Why are we stop—" Then she noticed the cars blocking their way. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh." Glenn muttered. "There's an interstate bypass—"
"We can't spare the fuel." Dale interrupted.
"So how do we get through?" Mal asked slowly.
"I don't kno—" Before he could finish, the engine began to sputter. As he muttered something under his breath, he, Shane, Andrea, T, and the Rhee siblings stepped out of the truck. "I said it. Didn't I say it? A thousand times. Dead in the water."
"Problem, Dale?" Shane questioned.
"I mean, the RV is kind of, you know, smoking." Mal said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, earning a glare from Shane.
"And it's just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of—" Dale stopped himself as Daryl began to look through one of the cars. "Okay, that was dumb."
"If you can't find a radiator hose here ..." Shane trailed.
"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find." Daryl said, rummaging through the cars trunk
"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start." T nodded.
"Maybe some water." Carol suggested. "Or food."
"This is a graveyard." Lori spoke up, clearly not approving. "I don't know how I feel about this."
"Lori, everywhere we go is likely to be a graveyard." Mal spoke softly. "We can either leave everything here and let it rot, or we can take it and let it be of use." She understood Lori's point, but they needed more water, food, clothes, other things they could find here. "These people are gone, they won't need any of this, but we're alive and we're hungry. And I say that in full respect for everyone that died here."
"Come on, y'all. Just look around, gather what you can." Shane told them after Mal's speech.
Mal looked around and picked a random car to loot from. She chose a red truck. It was bigger and likely to have more things. She opened the passenger door, surprisingly being met with no bodies falling on top of her. There was an open bag with a few shirts — clean shirts for both men and women that were most likely her age or a little older. Then she opened the back door. A baby's car seat, a bag of baby supplies, and water bottles.
